We were seated by the window and immediately ordered a couple glasses of white wine and a bottle of sparkling to cool down.
To begin, an amuse bouche -- a modern interpretation of banchan (반찬) or Korean side dishes served with every Korean meal.
Sometimes I think frou frou desserts become over-complicated quick, but this was perfectly balanced; bursting with flavor and yet so restrained. Fluffy cake, creamy dollops of whipped cream, cherry gelee with pockets of passionfruit and a spoonful of tangy cherry sorbet. Topped with a branch of dark chocolate -- it was as beautiful to look at as it was to eat.
You can tell how much I loved it because I took about a zillion photos, as if somehow having multiple images of the dessert would preserve it's flavor memory.
It's not normal for us to eat so fancy -- we usually like to try one "nice" restaurant towards the end of a trip . The bulk of the time we prefer low key hole-in-the-wall street food type places. Restaurants like this are hard to come by in Korea, especially outside of Seoul (even within Seoul) so we figured it was as good a time as any to give it a try. We were glad we did -- it made for a very memorable (and delicious) afternoon.